Chapter 14
“Did you say Donut?” Gray carefully asked, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard me correctly. As if this hadn’t been part of his plan all along. Before I had the chance to snap back at him, he gave a subtle shake of his head and added, “Shadow Donut or food donut?”
“Gray,” I said irritably as my eyes narrowed into slits.
An equally irritable breath left him. “You’re gonna need to help me out here, Peach, because Briggs hasn’t mentioned any cases, and I haven’t seen any boxes lying around. And what do either of those have to do with Tessa?”
I ground my teeth and forced myself to take slow, deep breaths so I wouldn’t lash out at him more than I already had. Not that I wasn’t a massive fan of lashing out at Hudson Gray, but he was right . . . we were surrounded by his family.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” I said softly but no less lethally. Just as frustration flared in his pale eyes, I added, “And I hate that you thought it was okay to lie to me—to manipulate me—even for something like this.”
Gray’s answering silence somehow felt like both a warning and the worst kind of grief. But he just kept his stare on me as tense moments passed before gruffly rumbling, “Think it’s time we head back.”
And that little statement had my confidence faltering.
The pain he’d barely concealed had my fury depleting in an instant.
Hesitation and confusion weighed heavily on my chest in the following seconds that seemed to stretch for so much longer. But just as my lips parted to question him, one of his cousins’ wives gasped from where they’d apparently followed me in here.
Something I would’ve known if I hadn’t been so blinded by my betrayal and hurt from the man in front of me.
“Y’all can’t leave! I thought you came back to help.”
Right. That.
Gray’s brow furrowed, but his stare lingered on mine like I might be the one to explain before he eventually glanced past me. “I don’t think y’all want me helping out at your booths.”
The cousin I’d seen most over the years, Hunter, huffed something resembling a laugh. “Yeah, you’re not allowed near that product. You’d give it all away.”
Gray pointed at Hunter without looking in his direction just as the same wife who’d spoken before said, “Uh, yeah, no thanks,” with a soft snort.
Stepping closer until she was in our little cluster at the kitchen island, Emberly easily fell into Cayson’s embrace while sending an exasperated look at Gray.
“But you know that isn’t what I’m talking about. ”
“I assure you, I don’t,” Gray told Emberly quickly, his stare snapping back to take in the narrowing of mine. “I don’t,” he repeated softly but no less firmly.
“Hudson, we talked about this at length last weekend,” Emberly argued, sounding nearly as frustrated with the man as I was.
Or had been. Because it was evident in every part of Hudson Gray that he was completely lost as to what was going on.
It had been ever since he’d strongly suggested we head back to Dallas like he’d never once intended on trapping me in this tiny town . . . over an hour away.
“You really don’t know what she’s talking about,” I said under my breath, the words a statement rather than a question.
Gray’s brow ticked up, but before he could respond, Emberly continued.
“Tessa? Stalker, creeper guy who lives next to her? Won’t stop showing up wherever she is and asking her out?” Her tone held that I’m-waiting-for-you-to-remember irritation, and just as she continued, he seemed to.
Recognition and disbelief fell over Gray’s features, and his head slowly shifted in her direction as her voice filled the space, repeating words I’d already heard just before I’d stormed in here.
“You’re the one who said it sounded like one of your Kolache cases and—”
“Donut,” Gray mumbled over her, but Emberly went on without missing a beat.
“Yeah, love those too—and you said you’d look into it the next time you were here.”
Gray held up a hand, his head slanting and teeth flashing in a way that looked like an award-winning, butterfly-inducing smile, but I knew it for what it was: pure annoyance and challenge. “I did not.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he did,” Cayson mumbled.
Emberly lightly smacked her husband’s chest. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
Cayson rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth tugged up as he pulled her even closer with a low, “Yes, ma’am.” His smirk shifted into a wide grin, and I silently cursed this stupidly attractive family and their ridiculously distracting dimples.
It was no wonder there were so many kids running around.
“Apparently, you did,” Cayson told Gray, the words dripping with amusement.
“Nice,” Gray muttered before focusing on Emberly.
“Except, I didn’t. You told me Tessa had mentioned there was a guy in her building who seemed to show up wherever she was.
In the same breath, you also said you’d never once seen the guy at the shop, and that Tessa had admitted multiple times that he was a ‘super nice guy,’ which is why you thought she was being dramatic about the entire thing, because Tessa doesn’t like nice, clingy—” Gray caught himself before he could finish, his stare flashing my way and brows drawing together regretfully.
Right . . .
Tessa liked guys like Gray.
Charming, yes, but far too impish to be considered nice. And the exact opposite of clingy.
“I told you to let me know if it turned into anything real,” Gray continued with a subtle clearing of his throat. “I said if it did, and if the cops didn’t handle it first, I’d see if we could look into it—that we provide services called Donuts for people in bad situations.”
Emberly stared blankly at Gray before dully saying, “Right, and now I’m ninety-eight percent sure it’s real, and you’re here.” She made a face like she wasn’t sure why she’d had to explain information that she’d, most likely, been the only one privy to.
It was all I could do to keep my expression neutral when my stomach twisted and pitched with remorse as I quickly thought back to the way I’d stormed in here and through everything I’d said. Everything I’d insinuated.
But, before I’d done any of those things, Emberly had said, “Honestly, we shouldn’t have been surprised that Hudson brought you with him to work on the Kolache case thingy for Tessa. But I’m selfishly excited because now we can really get to know you.”
“Oh, I heard about that,” Madison had whispered.
Emberly’s sister, who was married to the youngest Dixon, had quickly added, “I forgot that’s why he was coming back!
” before she’d turned on me and asked, “How long do you think you’ll have to stay for it?
Not that we want you to leave—obviously.
I just don’t know if these things take days or weeks or what.
Also, coworkers- and best-friends-to-lovers is the best—trust me; I would know. And I’m so here for your story.”
“You already plotting it out?” Emberly had teased.
“Fully,” her sister had said with an excited shrug.
I hadn’t asked what they’d meant by any of it. I’d barely muttered an excuse before slipping away to get my answer about the Kolache case thingy for Tessa straight from the source.
I hadn’t had a reason to question or doubt them on why Gray or I were here when the three of them had spoken as confidently as they had. But I’d been there for the aftermath. I’d watched Gray’s real-time reaction, and it had me rethinking everything . . .
Namely, Wren and Aruba.
Another situation where I’d gotten my information from other people, rather than witnessing it firsthand—where everyone had been so sure that what they were saying was true. Another situation where Gray had been furious that anyone—that I—would’ve believed it.
My gaze betrayed me by searching out the man at my side. Taking in the subtle hardening of his jaw and the hurt he still wasn’t able to fully conceal, even as he teased Emberly.
“You’re really something, you know that?” he asked her.
“The best?” she lifted one of her shoulders in feigned arrogance. “I know.”
“A pain,” Gray corrected. “Always have been.” He blew out a harsh breath and raked one of his hands through his light brown hair. Just as he started turning toward me, he seemed to catch himself and forced his attention back on his family instead.
“Well, if you couldn’t tell, that isn’t why I’m here,” he continued. “Text me everything you know, and I’ll see what I can do once I get back to Dallas.”
“What?” Emberly said on a defeated breath.
“Yeah, what?” her sister picked up for her. “That can’t be how it works. How are you supposed to do anything if you aren’t here?”
A hesitant laugh crept from Gray, showing just how irritated he still was by the entire thing. “Research and looking into people are half of it. So, yeah, actually.”
“Half,” Emberly’s sister echoed triumphantly. I was fairly certain her name was Rae . . .
I should’ve been sure about her name. I would have known everything about everyone in that house within the first thirty minutes of being here if I hadn’t been so consumed with my frustration, devastation, and confusion over a certain green-eyed man while simultaneously trying to figure out how to escape my personal version of hell—a house filled with screaming children.
It also hadn’t helped that, when I’d thought I’d heard the name Rae, my mind had immediately drifted to how Lainey’s family called her Lainey Ray, and then the next thing I’d known, I’d been on a Gray-plus-Wren spiral.
Emotions were seriously stupid and completely unhelpful.
Something I’d been reminded of all too often throughout my life.
“You’re acting on your feminine emotions again,” my oldest brother mocked after slamming me to the mat and nearly knocking the oxygen from my lungs, his blood-stained smile feral as he bent over me. “That’s why you’ll never make it. Women don’t belong in battle.”
“Made you bleed,” I wheezed as I fought to calm all those feminine emotions.
He nodded while shifting his jaw and testing out the inside of his cheek.
“Finally,” he said, as if disappointed it’d taken me so long.
Never mind that he was seven years older than my fifteen years, twice my size, and pure muscle.
“Doesn’t mean you belong anywhere other than behind the safety of four walls, popping out kids, and keeping your hus—”
I swiped his legs out from under him before he could finish the sentence and rolled onto my knees to deliver a straight shot to his nose.
But just as soon as blood started pouring out of his maybe-broken nose, I went still when our dad’s booming voice echoed throughout our training space, “Mallory! Fight like a man or get out.”
I ground my jaw as my oldest brother smiled viciously, blood-covered face and all. “Feminine emotions,” he mouthed.
“Mallory,” Dad snapped expectantly.
“Yes, sir,” I shouted back and started pushing away from my brother just as he taunted, “Go be a good little princess, and hide in your castle.”
I punched him again . . .
Dad kicked me out until I could get control of my emotions . . .
It wasn’t the first time I’d been kicked out of our training space, and it wouldn’t be the last.
I swallowed thickly and pushed the memory from my mind, but it didn’t erase the shame that remained. Shame that came from years of disappointed lectures in the form of my dad trying to yell my emotions out of me.
Not that it had worked. Clearly. They still got the better of me far too frequently.
And for a moment, I wondered what I would’ve been like if I hadn’t had four brothers and a father who constantly mocked and demanded I suppress my emotions.
Instead of bottling everything up and hiding away from the people closest to me—instead of lashing out at the man I loved—maybe I would’ve been more like Lainey and Chloe.
Maybe I would’ve been more like the women in this house.
Lighter. Happier. Effortlessly offering my thoughts and feelings to my friends and family . . . to Hudson Gray.
Just as the thought crossed my mind, I dismissed it. Because, again, without my family’s constant training and belittling, I never would’ve met Gray or the rest of my crew.
My heart stalled when my attention drifted back to Gray as if drawn, only to find him closer than before, intently studying me, brow furrowed and eyes searching like he could see every one of my thoughts. One of his hands was slightly raised, like he’d started reaching for me before stopping.
And then my betraying heart gave a painful thump before taking off in a rapid, unforgiving pace as I stood still as stone, body buzzing with energy I desperately tried to ignore as I waited for something.
The tension to break. Him to speak. Another brush of his fingers against mine. The strength to look away.
Anything.